


Playing Pretend

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Category: Marvel 616
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Red Room (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 09:06:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13384602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: There are no children in the Red Room or in Department X, and love is only for children. That doesn't mean the grown ups can't play pretend, however.





	Playing Pretend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inknpaint](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inknpaint/gifts).



They called her "girl" in mission debriefings, but Natalia Alianovna Romanova was a young woman on the cusp of her twenty-first birthday. Already, she was proficient with knives, pistols, rifles, garrotes, hand to hand combat and blunt weapons. She was adept at languages, spoken and computer, and adroit with poisons and observing human nature. Her trainers kept her fairly isolated with training and theory, and she couldn't help but think it was to lessen her humanity. It was easier to kill if she thought herself a soulless monster, after all.

Natalia buried it deep, under layers of lessons and memories her superiors implanted into her mind with and without her consent. Her body wasn't her own, not while she was in their control, not when her life was nothing but one mission after another.

She wanted something real, something human, something _hers,_ something that not even the cruelest of handlers could take away.

There was no escape, not when she was monitored so closely, ranked and assessed constantly. But she could keep her emotions secret, keep her thoughts close. Minor rebellions, but rebellions just the same.

The move made them trust her, however. Few knew of the existence of the Winter Soldier, but she was being sent to Department X to train with him to improve her fighter and sniper skills, as well as practice her languages outside of a test manual.

And he was gorgeous.

He had an aura that commanded respect, a presence that was solid, comforting and menacing all at once. The Winter Solider was highly competent and skilled, with little patience for idiots or wasting time.

When no one else was looking, there was _life_ in his eyes, the ghost of a soul inside the Soldier, an echo of the man he used to be. Natalia was a composite of countless selves and lives never lived, and the Winter Soldier was meant to be a perpetual blank slate. Yet somehow, she retained a thread of self, the same as he did, and hid it away.

"Comrade," she said to him with a deferential nod when they met for a sparring session. Inevitably, their superiors were watching them, a display they bizarrely interpreted as a sign of _their_ power, not Natalia's or the Soldier's. That was a mistake neither intended to disabuse them of.

"Your skill improves," the Soldier said. His voice was flat, all business, but his eyes danced with amusement. The game was on, then.

"It helps to have a skilled partner," she replied, wrapping her hands as he did his own. The faint whirr and click of his metal arm shifting and moving wasn't enough to drown out their words, but the generals were occupied with their grandstanding.

This was a dance they were getting quite good at.

"Some things are best with just two."

"Audiences can sour the outcome," Natasha agreed, finishing off her hands. "There is always something to be said for private assessments, a chance to study in a far more intimate level, and to truly understand the outcome."

"I understand and agree." The corner of his mouth curled in a seductive smile, and Natalia wondered how the old men couldn't see what was happening right under their noses.

It was just as well. Neither wanted this flirtation to ever end. And if it continued further...

The sparring was a dance of wicked looking strikes and kicks, though both pulled their punches and didn't truly harm one another.

"It's seamless," one of the generals said, sounding pleased as if he had been personally responsible for their skills. "I want them."

Natalia flashed the Soldier an amused look and wrinkled her nose in distaste as she whirled around him. "That wouldn't be my choice."

"I doubt it's _anyone's_ choice," he agreed, eyes flicking to the general in question as he threw a nasty looking punch that she dodged. They both knew that the old men who believed themselves to be untouchable were debating over which would be allowed to use the Black Widow and Winter Soldier for a mission. Each felt they were the most important, most needed by the regime. 

The Winter Soldier held Natalia's gaze when he caught her swinging fist in his metal hand. It didn't matter if none of the generals were paying attention at the moment, they had to continue with their display. "Regardless of which impossible choice, it will be done."

"Perhaps you can be as well," she purred in response, lips curling in a seductive smile.

His pupils dilated and lips parted. While the old generals treated him as a machine, he was very much a man, and just as interested in her as she was in him.

***

The general that had started the bidding war wasn't the one to finally win their services. It was one of the quiet ones, which meant Natalia wasn't sure what his angle was or why he even wanted them. There were few opportunities to get the Soldier's opinion on the man, so they went into the briefing meeting blind.

He eyed them both with a stoic, unimpressed expression on his face. It was heavily lined, with deep jowls, a fringe of short white hair and myriad medals pinned on his uniform. It was an obvious ploy to appear important, but that didn't mean he wasn't.

"I have a vested interest in this program, as well as a few others," he said, voice sharp and no nonsense, a tone that likely cowed ordinary military men. "There is a reporter, thinking to expose secrets. He needs to not only die, he needs to be thoroughly discredited."

"How much latitude is there in this mission?" the Soldier asked as the general slapped a folder onto his desk.

"Whatever funds and equipment you need. Just _get it done."_

"Of course," the Soldier said, taking the folder. Natalia nodded briskly, sensing that the Soldier would be better taking the lead in light of the general's apparent paternalistic attitude.

They left in silence, planning to go over the information the general provided on the reporter. It was likely that there was far more to this story than the general was willing to disclose, but they'd have to tease out the details for themselves.

Honestly, that was part of the fun.

***

Vasily Petrovich Kotov was the reporter in question, a writer for a newspaper that really shouldn't have given any general that knew about the Red Room or Department X pause. He had his vices in the form of cigarettes, vodka and visiting a few women known to take rubles in exchange for their time. Otherwise, he was on the move constantly, diving into the lives of various socialites and artists for the society pages. It was definitely suspicious that this reporter would be causing so much trouble.

A quick search of Kotov's background yielded absolutely no useful information about him. There was the blandest and thinnest of histories, and Natalia was sure that trying to check on it in person would reveal that it was false. It carried all the earmarks of a spy's cover identity, which suddenly made a lot more sense for the general's interest.

"Willful spy, or implanted memories, do you think?" Natalia asked the Soldier. They were released into the world for this mission, but neither presumed to think that they were very far off leash. Someone was monitoring their progress; someone always was.

"I've done recon while you did background," the Soldier said, coming to stand beside her at the desk in the dingy hotel room they were based in. "No obvious tells, so he could be a sleeper of either persuasion."

Natalia turned in her seat and gave him a playful smile. "And what kind of sleepers are we?"

Something shifted in his gaze, and there seemed to be desire there. "Aware," he murmured, pulling her to her feet. "Able to make changes to the plan within parameters of the mission."

She smiled as she linked her fingers through his. The metal hand felt chilly compared to his flesh and blood one, but she didn't mind it. If anything, the slight shiver made her wonder how his touch would feel elsewhere on her body. She pressed the metal hand against her chest, nothing but a thin shirt between it and her skin. "I plan on making a rather significant change. If you'd like to change the parameters with me."

That was definitely desire in his eyes now, and oh yes, he was very much a man they treated as no more than a machine.

He ripped the shirt from her body as he leaned down to kiss her. As rough as he could be, the Soldier gave her ample opportunity to slip out of his grasp and get away if he had misinterpreted her signals. Thoughtful, but unnecessary. Natalia wanted him just as badly, and started working on the buckles holding his armor in place. They moved quickly, knowing that this was stolen time together, and they didn't have the luxury of exploration. If they were incredibly lucky, they could learn each other later.

Nipping at exposed skin as she stripped the Soldier, Natalia smiled when he cursed under his breath in impatience. "Perhaps you're in too much of a hurry for the bed."

The Soldier growled slightly as the rest of her clothing was yanked off and tossed across the room. "I _need,"_ he said, trying to touch her everywhere at once.

She pushed his pants down from his hips and then hopped up onto the desk, spreading her legs wide for him. "I _need_ it, too."

His flesh fingers went to her first, tracing her and then thrusting inside of her. The metal fingers held her hips in place as he moved, twitching slightly when her hand closed over his length. "Mine," she whimpered as she squeezed it. "This is only mine."

He kissed her ravenously in reply, fingers moving faster. "You're mine," he groaned when he broke the kiss to breathe. "All of you."

"Greedy," she gasped, canting her hips toward his hand. His fingers slid deeper into her wetness, curling and stroking her from the inside out. She could feel the warmth of pleasure shooting through her entire body. "I like it."

"Good," he growled, then moved to enter her body. He moaned in desire when she grasped his hand and put his fingers into her mouth as she locked her legs around his waist. "You'll be the death of me."

"What a way to go," she laughed breathlessly.

They were beyond words at that point, moving hard and fast. Every sensation was intense and not enough, and it was over far too soon. Natalia clung to the Soldier after, chest heaving as she panted. "This can't be the only time," she whispered, lips pressed to his skin. She was cradled in his arms, feeling protected and safe despite the Soldier's reputation.

"If they know..." His voice trailed off, uncertain. "They can't know. They'd punish us somehow for this. It wasn't what they intended, so they wouldn't want us to have this."

"But we can pretend," she said slowly, tasting the syllables as she ran her hand down his back in a caress. "Our training should help. If they think us loyal to their cause, they won't look further and see what we have."

His expression was pained as he pulled back to tip her chin up to look at him. "There will be much they ask of us. It will be painful. You're new, you don't know how truly bad it can get."

"I've killed before," she told him, leaning into his touch.

"That's the least of their demands."

Natalia turned and kissed his metal palm. "If I have something to work for, it will be tolerable."

The Soldier pulled her in for another kiss. "Then let's finish the mission and earn our reward."

***

Kotov was painfully easy to shadow. The Soldier took that aspect of the job while Natalia went through his apartment systematically. She looked for hidden compartments in each room and piece of furniture, hitting pay dirt with the desk. Taped underneath a drawer was an unmarked floppy disk in an envelope. She removed it carefully, even though she couldn't see tripwires or traps around it. It wouldn't do to get cocky and assume that Kotov was an idiot spy. His messy mistakes could have been deliberate, a way to keep her from continuing to go after him.

She carefully added the hallucinogenic compounds she had brought with her into Kotov's vodka bottles and even sprinkled some into his teapot and rubbed it on the inside of a few random glasses. The last item in her handbag was a plastic baggie with American dollars in it, which she hid in his toilet tank. Between his impending erratic behavior and the "proof" of collaborating with the West, Kotov would look like a man who could never be trusted. That would go far in the discrediting portion of the general's demand.

Part of the rooms that Department X had let them obtain included a computer. Natalia took a circuitous route to the rooms, in the off chance that Kotov wasn't working alone, making sure to change her appearance in the restroom of a bakery. It might have been paranoia, but that would keep her alive in this deadly game.

Once relatively safe in her rooms, she inserted the floppy disk into the machine when she had the basic command prompt up, then went through the floppy's directory on the B drive. Or tried to, because the entire screen started spouting gibberish.

Natalia leaned back in the chair and pursed her lips in frustration, staring at the screen. All this subterfuge, and for what? A floppy drive that was ruined—

No, wait. She had learned better than that in her programming classes. A ruined disk would be impossible to read at all, and the attached drive would make angry whirring noises. This hadn't done that at all, and now that she stared at the screen, there seemed to be a repeating pattern within the scrolling nonsense. It wasn't binary or the standard hexadecimal computer languages that she had been trained in. There was a pattern, but she didn't know what it meant.

Drumming her fingers on the desk, she finally decided to hit the enter key. Sometimes that would interrupt functions. This didn't seem to work. Neither did the space bar, escape key, shift key or home key. When she hit the delete key, however, the screen froze. A moment later, a prompt showed up asking for a name.

Natalia tried Kotov's name, and the screen blanked. _Documents already created_ appeared after a moment in the center of the screen. _Replicate set? Y/N__

She sat very still, staring at the screen. This would be what the general wanted, then. It wasn't about Kotov, exactly. The reporter façade could easily be discredited. It was what the man knew, and what secrets he had taken with him. Had he been trying to defect?

Could she and the Soldier?

They would have to be careful if so. They would need supplies, funds, contacts. She would have to see what documents this disk created, though she had a feeling that it was what Kotov used to create his current identity. Perhaps it was even capable of creating the rudimentary start of a public record. If so, it would be invaluable.

Taking the disk out of the drive, Natalia let out a slow breath. The general had never spoken about a disk, only discrediting Kotov. There had been no specific directives. He didn't have to know about what she had found, if indeed this could create identities. It might be a test, to see how well she could follow orders and intuit others. If that was the case, then this would be a failed attempt at work outside of the Red Room. That would indicate gaps in her training, areas where she had to take further lessons and improve before she was truly out in the world. At this point, it was clear that she would have further training with the Winter Soldier, so that was certainly not a hardship in the least.

She would have to find a more sophisticated computer to take a look at the actual data on the disk and what program it ran to be sure. It wouldn't do to hang all of her hope on this, when it might not even be what she hoped it was.

Hope was a child's emotion, much like love, but Natalia couldn't help but hang onto it tightly and smile at the disk. The Soldier would feel the same, she knew.

They could play pretend a while longer, and leave when it was convenient.

The End


End file.
